Business Ethics 9224
The Waiter Rule: What Makes for a Good CEO?
Is character an essential ingredient in ethical leadership? Is it especially important in managers? In leadership, especially among CEOs, is character important?
Character: An essential Ingredient in Ethical Leadership:
Character is an essential component in an employee's personality. It shows integrity, honesty, and loyalty of that employee with the organization. When it comes to top leadership, the need to have a sound character in the personality of top managers, CEO's, and directors is highly essential for the success of the organization. In addition to performing their assigned duties and responsibilities, it is also expected from these higher officials that they would exert full efforts in achieving the organizational goals without taking any undue advantage from its public image or resources. In the past, numerous ethical scandals have been pointed which have made the organizations think twice while hiring CEOs for their operations (Shaw, 2011).
Integrity and Sound Moral Character:
A CEO can be considered a man of integrity and to be possessed with a sound and impeccable character if he performs his duties without doing any unethical practices within or outside the organization. It is widely believed that character of employees is highly important irrespective of their job positions, levels, or departments. Character can also be judged by the performance of the CEO or top leadership officials during their day-to-day activities. It takes two different but equally unethical forms.
Ethical Dilemmas:
First, the CEO may take an undue advantage from the physical, human, informational, or financial resources whereas he is expected to safeguard these assets or resources from unauthorized usage or access. The second behavior is when the CEO subordinates the organizational interests over his personal interests. In order to avoid these situations, organizations are now strictly monitoring the conflict of interest and power dimensions of their CEOs. Hence, in order to achieve the set strategic goals in an effective and efficient way, organizations have to recruit CEOs that have proven track record, an honest personality, and sound moral character (Carroll & Buchholtz, 2012).
Q. 2: Do you agree with the Waiter Rule? Does it provide useful insights into who might be an ethical or unethical leader? Should corporate boards consider character when hiring someone for the top position?
Answer:
Waiter Rule can definitely give deep insights into someone's character (who is holding a top level management position like CEO, director, etc.) because it directly shows how he treats those who can do nothing for them. As a CEO or the director of a company, he oversees the performance of thousands of lower and middle level workers. His behavior with these lower level employees shows how much true concern he keeps in his heart for them. If he has a good moral character, he will also give these workers an equal respect. On the other hand, if he does not bear an immaculate or impeccable character, he will treat his subordinates with a quite rude and unfriendly behavior. This rude behavior must not be tolerated within organizations since it significantly affects the morale and motivation of the employees working at different levels and positions (Shaw, 2011).
Q. 3: Is using the Waiter Rule too simplistic a guideline for hiring people in important positions such as CEO?
Answer:
Although Waiter Rule is quite effective in judging the inner-self of higher officials like CEOs, directors, top managers, etc.; but it only takes one dimension of their personality in order to judge the softness and compassion in their heart for the lower level workers of the organization. For a better judgment, organizations should also use some other factors or parameters; like track record in previous organizations, power influence during previous years, level of conflict of interest observed in the past, his contribution to strengthening the organizational culture, and overall behavior with other higher officials in addition to the lower and middle level staff (Del, 2006).
Ethics in Practice Case 1
"What They Don't Know Won't Hurt Them"
Q. 1: Is it ethical for the doctor to allow...
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